[Infowarrior] - Why traditional Œ print ¹ media is doomed

[Richard Forno]

Why traditional Œprint¹ media is doomed
http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2008/01/24/why-traditional-print-media-is-doome
d/

It¹s their own fault.

Recently, I had the pleasure of being interviewed for a front page story at
the LA Times and a feature spread in BusinessWeek. I have a huge amount of
respect for both publications, and was honored to be interviewed. And the
interviews themselves didn¹t disappoint - both reporters were extremely
thorough, knowledgeable, and detailed. There were lots of follow-up calls,
and both stories were then exhaustively fact checked and reviewed by an army
of editors. Everything top-notch publications are supposed to do, they did,
and then some.

Blogging has become my go-to resource for up-to-the-minute news, but both
these interviews really brought home for me why traditional media continues
to be so much better at well-researched pieces. So great, right? They each
have a business niche. Traditional media can focus on deeply researched
articles and exposés while bloggers cover all the timely news and
commentary. Traditional media can still thrive - it¹s not gonna die.

Wrong.

Where these august publications fell down was in their online presentation.
Someone running these businesses hasn¹t figured out that their online
business model is advertising. They¹ve made it impossible to link to their
articles directly (ie, drive money-making traffic to them). On the LA Times¹
site, nearly every link you can find forces you to log in to view the
content. Lots of people have told me, personally, that they couldn¹t read
the article because they weren¹t going to sign in. Imagine how many people
don¹t know me or simply didn¹t speak up and just walked away.

And BusinessWeek is far, far worse. BusinessWeek actually asked us
specifically *not* to link to the article. Yes, that¹s right, an ad-driven
publication doesn¹t want us to drive traffic to them. They were kind enough
to point us to their User Agreement where, sure enough, they prohibit deep
linking. Talk about stupid. Ok, fine, so I¹ll link to Google (who¹s
apparently allowed to deep-link?) and they¹ll link you to the article for
me. Like so - this link behaves like a deep-link, but in reality I¹m linking
to Google, who¹s redirecting you to the article. (Ironically, this is
nerfing BusinessWeek¹s PageRank so they show up lower in Google than other
publications that allow deep-linking).

I can¹t imagine what must be going through the minds of the stellar
reporters and editors they have at the LA Times and BusinessWeek, but I¹ll
bet ³frustration² is only the very tip of the iceberg. To spend all of this
time and energy on their articles, only to have the crazy business people
make it impossible for people to read their work, must be incredibly trying.

On a related note, try clicking the ŒDigg This¹ icon at the end of the LA
Times story. You¹d think this would be a smart way to drive traffic, no? It
would be, except they¹re sending digg *Page 2* of the story - so even if it
makes Digg¹s homepage, people clicking through will start in the middle of
the story, instead of the beginning. I¹ll bet that makes the LA Times a lot
of money. Not.

After doing these stories, I¹m more likely than ever before to trust stories
from publications like the LA Times and BusinessWeek - but less likely to
link to them.